[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 47 (Friday, March 17, 2017)]
[House]
[Page H2173]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             WELFARE REFORM

  (Mr. DAVIDSON asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. DAVIDSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise to talk about Welfare BRAC, an 
opportunity to reorganize our 92 social safety net programs.
  Mr. Speaker, I call attention to the 92 programs that, over time, 
since the Great Society, our country has launched. I call attention to 
Ronald Reagan's prescient quote about the near eternity of government 
programs. It is very hard to take a program away once it is launched, 
and this plan acts on The Brookings Institution's data, which has 
rarely been accused of being on the right side of the political 
ideology.
  It says that if we do three things, we will eliminate 80 percent of 
poverty: graduate high school, work full-time at any wage, and have no 
kids outside of marriage.
  This program that I am proposing in this bill, H.R. 1469, the Welfare 
Benefit Reform and Alignment Commission, would nominate four 
Republicans and four Democrats. They would have 1 year to work together 
until September 30, 2018, to prioritize not taking any money away, but 
taking the 92 programs and making them fewer.
  So if you think about the social worker out in the country trying to 
help somebody who is in a social safety net, each of these programs may 
have a 4-inch binder. I don't think we need 92. Maybe it is 6; maybe it 
is 12. It is not 92.
  I encourage my colleagues to support this and work together to make 
this a more efficient program so we can help meet their needs.

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